H. Simpson
Apr 1, 2012
Citations
0
Influential Citations
17
Citations
Journal
Depression and Anxiety
Abstract
A centerpiece of the Annual Meeting of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA) is the Scientific Research Symposium (SRS). Initiated in 1998, this special symposium highlights cutting-edge research of relevance to anxiety, fosters translational thinking by focusing on topics that span basic and clinical research, and creates a forum that gathers researchers and promotes meaningful interactions between them. In 2011, the SRS focused on what was then a new initiative of the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH): the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) project. Motivated by the failure of traditional diagnostic categories to align with advances in genetics and neuroscience, the project seeks to transform the conception of mental illness and thereby accelerate etiological understanding and treatment development. The project garnered immediate attention from the research community because grant applications consistent with the RDoC approach were given funding priority. Thus, the Scientific Council of the ADAA decided to use the 2011 SRS to educate ADAA members about the RDoC project and to showcase research consistent with this approach. The result was a forum where NIMH program staff and ADAA members envisioned together how this initiative might transform the study of anxiety. This issue of Depression and Anxiety showcases articles from investigators who spoke at the 2011 SRS. This editorial summarizes their presentations and highlights how their work illustrates the RDoC approach. The RDoC project is described in detail on the web (http://www.nimh.nih.gov/research-funding/rdoc. shtml). In brief, the aim is to develop a framework for research that identifies key domains of neural function (e.g., cognitive systems or negative valence systems), to specify constructs within these domains that can be mapped onto brain circuits (e.g., attention within the cognitive domain or fear within the negative valence domain), and to delineate different units of analysis that pertain to these constructs (e.g., genes, molecules, cells,